Our Fringe meeting at this year’s conference will take place at 8.00pm on Monday 17th September in Glyndebourne 2 in the Holiday Inn.

The topic is ‘Is Atheism The New Religion?’ with guest speaker Keith Porteous-Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society.

(If you’re attending the fringe or the AGM but are not registering for the rest of Conference, you will need to bring your Party membership card in case of security difficulties)

Keith has led campaigning for the National Secular Society since 1996 after being the finance director for a number of large companies.

He is active in representing a secular and non-religious perspective in Whitehall and Parliament, mainly at Westminster but also in the European Parliament, Council of Europe, and to a limited extent in United Nations.

Keith recently worked with Dr. Evan Harris MP on the campaign for greater protection of freedom of expression in religious hatred provisions where the Government lost by 149 votes in Lords and 1 vote in Commons.

He gave verbal evidence to Select Committees including the Lords Religious Offences Committee and the Royal “Wakeham” Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords.

He also prepared numerous submissions to Government consultations including Census 2011 and he was responsible for older pupils being able to opt themselves out of Collective Worship (Section 55 Education and Inspections Act 2006).